Strange(r) Encouragement

There are some strangely friendly and easily impressed people at my gym. Yesterday I went for a quick swim and the lady in the lane next to me started talking to me. She asked if my goggles worked. Strange question right there, if you ask me. But I told her all about how goggles changed my life. (Side note: I have to type that word twice every single time because I always write googles the first time! Anyone else?) Anyway, she commented on my flip turning... apparently she was in the pool during one of my flip turn lessons. She was pretty impressed with my progress, I guess. That's not the first time someone in the pool has taken note of my swim routine and talked to me about it, either! Several months ago, a lady in the water aerobics class noticed the drills I was doing in the open lane at the end of the pool, and spoke to me after class. She was very impressed with a one-arm-only drill I did.

Both of those instances were pretty strange to me. I generally don't talk to people I don't know at the gym. I love seeing people I do know there--and I often do--but sweaty or swimsuit-clad strangers? Eh... I'll pass. Nevertheless, it was pretty great to get some truly unbiased encouragement. I have a fantastic amount of support from friends, family, patients, and my boss and his wife, and I am so grateful for that! But getting a random unsolicited compliment from a total stranger is also kind of awesome, especially when they notice an area where I find myself struggling. The one-arm drill that caught the first woman's eye was really hard! And flip turns are definitely not my strong suit. (Is that a swimming pun? Oh, I amuse myself...)

Anyhow, I did appreciate the encouragement from this random lady in the pool last night. Every little bit of motivation helps! This afternoon I'll be going for a short run--should be about 21 minutes--over my lunch break. There is some fantastic weather going on outside, so I am looking forward to that. Tomorrow my plan is to fit in a long bike ride (70 minutes) and a long swim (35 minutes)--we'll see how that goes! Swim first, probably. Between the two, that's a large percentage of my day spent on training! But Friday I head out of town for a wedding, so I've got to cram things in a bit more this week. I'll definitely keep y'all posted on how the double workout goes.